Council Decision (EU) 2016/971 of 17 June 2016 on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of an agreement in the form of the Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA)

What it is

to conclude, on behalf of the European Union, an agreement in the form of a Declaration on the expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA). ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: Council may adopt the act only if Parliament has given its consent to the act. BACKGROUND: the "Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products", known as the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), was concluded by 29 WTO Member States at the Singapore Ministerial Conference in 1996. The ITA entered into force in the European Union in 1997. Today, the ITA counts 82 participants, or half of WTO Members, and covers 97 % of trade in this sector. The ITA requires that each participant eliminates and binds customs duties at zero on a Most Favoured Nation basis for all information technology (IT) products covered. The ITA covers about 200 tariff lines, including computers, telephones, but also inputs, components and machinery for the production of IT goods. BACKGROUND: the Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products, commonly referred to as the Information Technology Agreement (‘ITA’), was adopted in Singapore on 13 December 1996. Paragraph 3 of the Annex to the ITA states that participants are to meet periodically under the auspices of the Council on Trade in Goods of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to review the product coverage with a view to agreeing, by consensus, whether it is appropriate to modify the Attachments to that Annex to incorporate additional products. On 8 July 2009, the Council authorised the Commission to negotiate a review of the ITA with a view to expanding its product coverage to reflect technological developments and convergence. On 28 July 2015, the participants in the negotiations issued a Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (‘the Declaration on the expansion of the ITA’), which records the results of the negotiations. During the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference held in Nairobi from 15 to 18 December 2015, the participants in the negotiations issued the Ministerial Declaration which endorses and opens for acceptance the Declaration on the expansion of the ITA. The Ministerial Declaration also records the agreement of the participants in the negotiations with the draft schedules submitted by each of them pursuant to paragraph 5 of the Declaration on the expansion of the ITA, which are included in WTO document G/MA/W/117. CONTENT: the draft Council Decision seeks the approval, on behalf of the European Union, of the Declaration on the expansion of the ITA and the schedules submitted in accordance with paragraph 5 thereof. For further details please refer to the summary of the initial legislative proposal dated from 8.3.2016. The Committee on International Trade adopted the report by Godelieve QUISTHOUDT-ROWOHL (EPP, DE) on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of an agreement in the form of the Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA). The committee recommended the European Parliament to give its consent to the conclusion of the Agreement. To recall, the first…

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